Traditional data center operations tools, such as backup, security, and network monitoring, are typically implemented on an infrastructure-centric basis. Such tools have been devised, often at great expense, to provide one or more services within a particular operational entity. Thus, there is no concept associated with these services of a “customer” as such, but merely the use of one or more services available within the entity, such as a data processing center.
With increased access to information by small to medium-sized businesses via wide area networks, a marketing niche has arisen: the provision of computational and information management services to businesses unable to afford custom application development, either with respect to time or money. While some service providers have come to the market with newly-developed, multi-customer and network-enabled software to provide such services, there are many others that wish to offer these services using legacy tools, originally developed in-house for use by a single entity, on a networked, multi-customer basis. Such tools have a history of operating on a daily basis in a real-world environment, providing the additional benefit of proven performance.
In selling services to consumers, the ability to offer a product which is competitively priced, free from operational inconsistency, and readily available on a semi-custom basis is important. However, attempting to deploy legacy tools in the form of newly-developed, customized versions for a variety of individual customers over a network is expensive, time-consuming, and fraught with many of the problems inherent in any programming development effort.
In addition, some legacy tools, while operating at a suitable level within a particular entity, may not be capable of meeting consumer expectations associated with most basic service offerings, such as the generic ability to accommodate usage preferences of multiple customers (and users which make up a single customer), to gather usage statistics, to provide customer-specific control, health, and status reports, as well as to provide operational problem alerting.
Another difficulty in converting such tools for use by a variety of customers is creating a customer-centric operational view, such that the application interface is consistent across multiple customers and, possibly, across multiple service offerings. Each tool typically has distinct interface requirements. Further, while many users share operational and logistical characteristics, so as to be somewhat the same, there are also unique needs which must be addressed, such as requirements for operational problem alerting, service billing, and reporting.